Arm and Leg Pain

Do you have arm or leg pain? We all use our arms and legs constantly throughout the day. In fact, our shoulder and hip joints are two of the most mobile and frequently used joints in our bodies. This combination of frequency and mobility has led to a wide range of possible injuries and sources of pain. Sometimes people enter our office completely unaware of what caused their pain. Maybe it is a weekend warrior who overused the joint in an athletic competition, an unfortunate participant in a car accident, a person lifting too much weight at work or home, or a grandmother who fell asleep holding her grandchild in one position all night. Typically, these situations cause almost an immediate pain or discomfort as a result of muscle, bone, or nervous system damage and irritation.

However, many people develop arm and leg pain gradually over time, and are relatively unaware of what may have caused it. When the patient is perplexed by what may have caused the pain, vertebral subluxations, arthritis, bursitis, tendonitis, and frozen shoulder become likely suspects. In addition to these sources of pain, switching or taking new medications such as, antibiotics, birth control, and anxiety medications have been shown to contribute to development of insidious arm and leg pain.

If this list of possible causes wasn’t confusing enough, it has also been shown that arm and leg pain is often caused by “referred pain”. This pattern of pain is often used to describe the sensation of pain down the left arm that people feel during the start of a heart attack. Another example of a referred pain pattern is the pain that an inflamed gall bladder causes under their right shoulder blade.

Frequently, our team at Trinity Chiropractic sees patients who present with arm and leg pain that is being referred from nerve irritation that begins at the spine. If the spaces where the nerves leave the spine become narrowed due to the vertebrae or disc being out of position, the nerve can become irritated and often produces pain down its entire path. The pain patterns associated with sciatica are a good example of this mechanism.

What Is Causing My Pain?

Due to the complexity of the joints and the vast number of possible causes, it is important that you see someone who is trained in these areas. Our team at Trinity Chiropractic will use a detailed and complete approach to figure out what is causing your pain. Typically, our office will use a combination of a thorough history, physical examination, and advanced imaging to get to the root cause of your problems. Experience allows our team to be able to use the location of the pain, aggravating or alleviating factors, type of pain sensation, and other symptoms such as swelling, skin changes, and bruising as other tools to assist in the diagnosis.

Can Chiropractic Help?

So how can chiropractic help my arm and leg pain? As with any condition, you want to start with treating the most common and typical cause of the pain and symptoms first. At Trinity Chiropractic we have found that misalignment (subluxations) of the vertebrae in the neck and lower back are responsible for the vast majority of arm and leg pain. As described above, when bones or discs are out of position, and lose their ability to move properly, they often cause irritation to the surrounding tissues, including the nerves.

Many patients are surprised when they see that the nerves in our body travel from the spine all the way to the ends of our fingertips and toes. As a result, injuries to the vertebrae in the spine can create the sensation of pain anywhere along our arms and legs. Through this pattern of treatment, patients at our clinic have experienced high levels of success through chiropractic treatment. If you are experiencing arm or leg pain contact us to schedule a consultation today.